Watson Kirkconnell
Watson Kirkconnell was a notable Canadian scholar and translator, born on May 16, 1896, in Port Hope, Ontario. He demonstrated an early passion for languages, mastering several by the age of seventeen, which laid the groundwork for his academic pursuits. After earning a master's degree in comparative literature from Queen's University, he served as a captain during World War I, where he utilized his language skills in prisoner-of-war operations. Kirkconnell's teaching career began at Wesley College (now the University of Winnipeg), where he spent eighteen years, focusing heavily on philology and classics.
Kirkconnell is perhaps best known for his extensive translation work, which included translating elegiac poems from various languages into English, a project that emerged during his personal mourning for his late wife. He translated nearly four thousand pages of poetry from twenty different languages and authored significant works, including "The Ukrainian Poets, 1189–1962." His philosophy of translation emphasized bridging cultural divides and expressing universal themes of grief and beauty. In addition to his translation work, he held several academic administrative roles, including president of Acadia University until his retirement in 1964. Despite his significant contributions, Kirkconnell's legacy has become somewhat obscure in the years following his death in 1977.
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Watson Kirkconnell
Writer
- Born: May 16, 1896
- Birthplace: Port Hope, Ontario, Canada
- Died: February 26, 1977
- Place of death: Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
Biography
Watson Kirkconnell was born May 16, 1896, in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, to Thomas Allison Kirkconnell, the headmaster of Port Hope High School, and Bertha Gertrude Watson Kirkconnell, a teacher. The boy showed an early interest in languages; by age seventeen, he had learned German, French, Latin, and ancient Greek and had begun studying comparative philology. After high school, he enrolled at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, earning a master’s degree in comparative literature in 1916. At the beginning of World War I, he entered the Queen’s Reserve, becoming a captain in the Department of Internment Operations, where, using his language skills, he worked with prisoners of war.
In 1922, Kirkconnell was offered a teaching position in the English Department at Wesley College, which is now the University of Winnipeg. This one-year assignment became an eighteen-year stay, first as an English instructor and then as head of the classics department. He took up philological pursuits and language studies again, aided by a photographic memory and tremendous fascination with “the interrelatedness of language patterns.” In 1924, he married Isabel Peel, who died the following year while giving birth to twin boys. The grieving Kirkconnell turned to translation of elegiac poems, rendering into English a hundred poems from fifty foreign languages. Thus began a brilliant career of translation, original verse, literary criticism, and work in other genres of writing. Kirkconnell was married again in 1930, to Hope Kitchener.
In his translation project, Kirkconnell faced numerous challenges, from the lack of adequate language dictionaries to the doubts of publishers that any single person could actually master fifty languages. Undeterred, Kirkconnell found “guarantors” for his translations—experts who could attest to the validity of his renditions. Kirkconnell finally placed his European Elegies with Graphic Press in Ottawa in 1928.
Especially while mourning, Kirkconnell felt affinity for the elegiac poems he rendered into English, and a strong sense of friendship for the different ethnic communities in Canada whose verse he translated. He also evolved a distinctive philosophy of translation as a way to transcend cultural barriers and communicate the “common perception of the sacredness of grief and the beauty of life even in its tragedy.” Somewhat like a method actor, Kirkconnell felt it necessary to incorporate the emotions engendered by his own experience to help convey the original poet’s experience.
Politically, Kirkconnell believed in bringing together modern nations “estranged by their very loyalties to speech, kin, and faith.” At a time when English and French were the two official languages of Canada, he became an energetic advocate for the “third” cultures whose work he translated.
In all, Kirkconnell translated some twenty volumes of poetry—nearly four thousand pages—from many languages, including Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Latin, Italian, French, and Hungarian. Most substantial was the five-hundred-page The Ukrainian Poets, 1189-1962. For his prodigious achievements in translation, he received awards and honorary degrees from many nations.
Kirkconnell also demonstrated considerable energy and skill in other endeavors, especially university administration. In 1940, he left Winnipeg to become head of the English department at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. From 1948 until his retirement in 1964, he was president of Acadia University in Nova Scotia. Since his death in 1977, Kirkconnell has fallen into relative obscurity, partly owing to the relative unpopularity of verse translation, partly because of his vociferous political conservatism in a liberal era.